Experimental and numerical study of the Young’s modulus vs temperature for heterogeneous model materials with polygonal inclusions

This work is related to the thermomechanical behaviour of industrial refractory materials. The microstructural complexity of such materials and the strong influence of the elastic properties on the resistance to thermomechanical sollicitations, lead us to study first of all the Young’s modulus of heterogeneous model materials with a simplified microstructure. The studied materials are composed of a glass matrix surrounding polygonal alumina inclusions. These two materials exhibit a dilatometric dissension sufficiently large to induce, during a thermal cycle, thermal stresses able to damage the matrix/inclusions interfaces. The present study deals with the Young’s modulus variations of the studied model materials according to the temperature. The numerical simulation of the matrix/inclusions interfaces behaviour was carried out using the Abaqus FEM code whose contact tool “Debond” allows to account for the interface matrix damage during a thermal cycle. The results show the ability of this tool to well describe the evolution of damage in function of the temperature. The Young’s modulus of the model materials was also measured using ultrasonic technique. A good agreement of the numerical and experimental results is obtained.